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Hypocrisy, thy name is The Blogging Tories.

Posted by Scott Tribe on February 4, 2009, at 8:22 pm |

So apparently, the big Conservative plan of attack on Mr. Ignatieff today has been to charge that he doesn’t even donate money to his own party. All types of Conservative bloggers and ahem, friendly news aggregators, have apparently been given their orders to parrot this around today.

I have just a couple of suggestions to our digging dirt right-wing compatriots:

a) I’d suggest the Conservatives do some better research at that multi-million dollar war-room facility of theirs, which would have showed that Mr Ignatieff and his wife have indeed donated to the LPC the past several years, as Warren documents at his blog at the above link.

b) Also courtesy of W.K’s site, certain conservative bloggers should learn to not throw stones from glass houses:

But how about those big-mouthed Conservative bloggers, many of whom are covertly paid by the CPC to spread crap around the Web? What did they donate to the Conservative Party last year?

I presume all of these folks that Warren has listed are the ones pushing the “Iggy doesnt support his own party” line today. Is it a bad thing to not donate? Nope – some folks maybe can’t donate to their party of choice due to economic circumstances (such as myself). But, you’re fair game when you start publishing incorrect Conservative talking points accusing someone of not donating to their party, when you (edit: or your most prominent colleagues) haven’t even done any donating yourself.

Physician, heal thyself.

UPDATE: A reader writes in saying he can’t find any of these above mentioned bloggers mentioned over at Warren’s site as having blogged today about Ignatieff and his supposed lack of Liberal Party donations. If that’s the case, (and I didn’t look at Bourque’s site earlier, which Warren did say was running this particular headline), then my presumption that Warren highlighted this particular list of Conservative bloggers because they were leading the attack on Iggy’s supposed non-donations (other then the news aggregator that he specifically named) is obviously not a correct presumption on my part.

I would suspect instead that he listed these because these are the more prominent Blogging Tory Conservative bloggers, and he was making a point that none of this bunch had done any donations to their favoured party, for which their fellow Blogging Tories are now going after Iggy about. So, his point (and mine) about the hypocrisy from them over this issue stand, as does the charge of Iggy not having made any donations in the first place being incorrect.

UPDATE [email protected]:30 pm: A former blogging colleague of mine in comments says he also saw that Bourque had been running this particular donations headline until lunch, and that SDA does have (or did have) a post up on this topic.

UPDATE 3:Proof that it was run at Bourque’s site. And if that mysteriously disappears… here’s the screenshot:

UPDATE 4: For good measure, the SDA screen capture (and by the way, there’s nothing mysterious or sinister about the Laurier Club):

SLG: I can’t speak to whether or not Iggy gave money to the party (I could care less quite frankly) but I can tell you according to the research done by http://1anxiousliberal.wordpress.com/ Layton has given the most of any party leader and it is over 10,000 over the course of several years.

@ MCAdvantages to Achieving Laurier Club Status:
Invitations to exclusive Laurier Club functions across the country, attended by prominent members of the Liberal Party
The occasion to meet business and community leaders with similar values
The opportunity to receive an inside look at the world of politics, while growing civic skills through an established network of Laurier Club contacts
Insider teleconference updates and briefings
Free access to events organized by the Liberal Party headquarters
A Laurier Club lapel pin, which symbolizes support of the Liberal Party of Canada
The knowledge of being an instrumental component in carrying a winning Liberal message to Canadians.https://www.liberal.ca/laurier_e.aspx

Of course you may also find this interestingLaurier Club status does not apply to contributions made to local ridings, candidates, leadership and nomination contestants.

From http://1anxiousliberal.wordpress.com/There has been a lot of talk as to why there is no record of Ignatieff making a donation to the Liberal Party in 2008. Below is some information about these quarterly reports, because people have been questioning what these reports are. So far, no one, and let me repeat that NO ONE, has come forward and shown where Elections Canada does have a record of a donation from Ignatieff. All I have seen is assurances that he has, attacks on me or attacks on Elections Canada. Typical political spin.
So where are the records of Iggy giving to the party?

The Laurier Club is not “akin to an insiders access to upper party members…” – it’s just another mechanism to attract members and donations for the party. A large part of the members are actually students (like myself).

I have to agree with Ted, the amount of unfounded accusations and rumours that are going around on Tory blogs these days is impressive. It looks like some are trying to start full-on attacks on Ignatieff, but they can’t find any issue with enough truth for it to catch on. I’ll give them a passing grade for imagination, but all in all it’s starting to look like desperation to me.

Many Liberal bloggers were pointing out that Iggy had not donate much to the Liberal party. This is before Warren K said that he donated to/via the Laurier Club. It might be true but I have not seen the proof, unlike the other donations… Is there a link to who donates via the Laurier Club? Let’s not forget that the Laurier club is akin to an insiders access to upper party members…As I said, the point that is being made is not only was the claim being made about Iggy incorrect,

Do you really think that it’s fair to compare bloggers with politicians benefiting directly from the party? I may say some nice things and comments about Mulcair and Duceppe but I sure would never support their party…but the rather blatant double-standard being used. I know you’re not an Iggy-lover, but you have to concede that point. Sure there is a double-standard, but it’s no more egregious than the one within the Liberal blogger community.

SDA has a post up. Bourque had the headline up at midday but I think, after a few emails from supporters in the know, he was taken down.

Taylor doesn’t but yesterday (and many other days) he put up a particularly egregious lie about Ignatieff accepting illegal donations from the Democratics in the US. Not a shred of reality to the accusation but he doesn’t change his post. (Bourque had that one up too but was also forced to back down.)

With the eggregious smears against Casey, and all of this, you have to wonder what’s up with all of the lying to spread mud? It used to be that they’d actually do some thinking and planning into their lies and mudslinging but these are just too easy to disprove.

As I said, the point that is being made is not only was the claim being made about Iggy incorrect, but the rather blatant double-standard being used. I know you’re not an Iggy-lover, but you have to concede that point.

Jim: I did a little update to my post which addresses your questions about that list and why Warren listed those particular ones. If true there is nothing on those specific ones, then its my presumption that was wrong, and I suspect he was just listing those big blogs off and their owners to make a point about the hypocrisy in trying to attack this (particularly when the charge isn’t true).

As for the links to the specific Conservative sites that did do these attack lines, if not the ones in Warren’s original list.. you’ll need to ask Warren specifically which blogs he saw – other then Bourque, which he specifically listed as seeing. He wouldn’t have said so otherwise.